SOMP blog

Saturday, I’ll be leading a workshop primarily for college students. I’ll be teaching them how to sew relief kit bags as part of a broader service day our church has organized. I’m excited! I just finished cutting about 25 or so bags from fabrics that somebody donated. I love teaching people how to sew—should be a fun day!

MCC sends thousands of various types of kits all around the world. For relief kits they use big buckets. For school, hygiene, and sewing kits, they use these little bags. The number of these that are sent is astounding. You can poke around on their website to find more information about that.

Being a person who makes a lot of things out of fabric, I occasionally (or all the time) find myself with pieces and usable scraps that are too little for my projects. Being a person who is a Mennonite and a Midwesterner, I have a pretty hard time throwing away a perfectly good thing that could potentially have another use somewhere, someday. The wonderful ladies at our church make stuff year round for MCC--bags for kits, quilts for auction, comforters for people in need. I've been able to recycle perfectly beautiful pieces of fabric, clear out some space in my workshop, and help out the sewing group with my small pieces.And then this happened:

Of course I'm not surprised that the ladies at church can make a beautiful blanket. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Ora and her friends made this for me and my family: these are, after all, some of the same people who welcomed us so warmly into the congregation (and fed us so much non dining hall food) years ago when we were visiting college students. But you know, I was totally surprised, and in the best possible way.